The Angry Bear

Weekly Indicators for October 3 – 7 at Seeking Alpha  – by New Deal democrat My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. This week’s headline was easy, because OPEC’s (and in particular Russia and Saudi Arabia’s) geopolitical decision – aimed directly at the November elections in the US as well as Western support for Ukraine –  to cut back production has already caused gas and oil prices to increase sharply. As usual, clicking over...

Having been raised in Chicago proper, I can speak to this city pre-Northwest Highway when you had to head north on Cicero Avenue to hop on the Edens Expressway (near Lebaugh woods) before the Northwest was even in place. You would pass the Nike Missile installation on the way to visit friends in Highland Park. That was the country to us and my friend and I would go exploring. The tallest building back then was the Prudential building at the north...

An Improvement In China’s Human Rights Record In XinJiang?, Econospeak by Barkley Rosser  On October 5, 2022, the Washington Post published a front section story, “Uyghyr crackdown eases, but Xinjiang;s scars endure,” by Eva Dou and Kate Cadell. The article documents the ongoing human rights problems and a lack of transparency in Xinjiang province in China, including ongoing use of forced labor in prisons in industrial parks, in the wake of...

In this rare Sunday edition, just a quick update. We are nearing harvest close up north as the weather changes and nightly freezes make morning harvests a challenge for whatever goodies are still left on the stalks. I doubt much is left in the actual fields up north, but down south, second harvest has come up, mostly cotton, and some late planted sorghum that some folks planted after a dismal corn harvest, wild fires and drought have caused in come...

As we hear how poorly the economy has been doing, I thought I might review Biden’s first year in office using six graphs from CEPR. I only wish the economy was this poor in 2008 when I forced to seek jobs out of state and work out of state for four years. I was good on making the swoop home to my wife the same as I did coming home from overseas duty. “Assessing the First Year of Biden, in Graphs” is what CEPR is calling its collection of articles...

Signs and portents of an employment slowdown and a near-term recession  – by New Deal democrat I continue to believe that a recession – possibly a deep if relatively brief one – is likely to start early next year. As I’ve mentioned before, this isn’t just an academic exercise; recessions by definition feature jobs and income losses, which is my primary interest. With that introduction, let’s look at one overall metric, and several which will...

The US military has ideas about how Taiwan can protect itself from a possible Chinese invasion (and therefore deter that invasion) I think they are very good ideas. I think that the proposed program would markedly reduce the threat of a PRC invasion of Taiwan, which is the most alarming threat currently faced by the US and its allies (including the allied country Taiwan, which the US does not recognize). I ask why is this program which is well...

September jobs report: a very positive report within a framework of continued deceleration As I have written many, many times, consumption leads employment; and the near stagnation in real sales and spending signaled that we should expect weaker monthly employment reports, with both fewer new jobs and a higher unemployment rate. In September, the former happened; the latter did not. The three month average in employment gains since February...

The point of this post is that I see an odd consensus about the conclusion based on opposite assumptions. The conclusion is the standard conclusion that US inflation is currently definitely too high and that it is necessary to reduce it even at the risk of a recession. First the US public considers current US inflation to be a very bad problem. It is easy to see why. Normal people use “inflation” to mean price inflation and assume given...